I remembered Nicole crying in the girls’ bathroom at school; her fear when I’d picked up the phone. Was he just a controlling asshole with a bad attitude or something more dangerous?
“Did you try to talk to her about it?”
“I told her she should dump him. We stopped hanging out after that for a couple of weeks, then she was with those girls all the time. She started wearing sexy clothes again and going to parties, so I thought she’d broken up with him.”
I thought back to that May, how she’d started sneaking out again later that month. Either she hadn’t broken up with this Dave guy, or she’d been meeting up with the girls to party, or she was seeing someone else. That summer she’d told me she was in love with a guy who worked with my father. The one who gave her the necklace. She’d said it was the boy from the party, but was that just a lie to cover up for the real person? Then I wondered if she might’ve been seeing one of the girls’ boyfriends. That would’ve pissed them off, but I didn’t think my sister had it in her. Odds were it was this guy.
“Why didn’t you say anything to the police about him after she died?”
“I did, and they said they’d look into it. But then you got arrested…”
“So you figured we did it.”
“I knew you and Ryan got in trouble a lot—and you were always doing drugs, and fighting with Nicole, and there were witnesses.…”
“I didn’t kill her, Darlene. I don’t know if this guy had anything to do with it, but I’d be surprised if the police ever talked to him.” I told her about our interrogation, how the police never considered other suspects, how the girls lied.
Darlene looked upset, considering the possibilities but still not willing to believe me completely. “Maybe Dave had an alibi or something.”
“Could be, but I’d like to have a talk with him now. Do you know if he’s still around? Or his last name?”
She was quiet for a few beats, then said, “I think it was Johnson. No, Jorgensen, something like that, but he moved away.”
It was a common enough name and it was going to be hard to find him after all these years, but still, there was a slim chance.
She said, “They weren’t friends anymore, you know.”
“Who?”
She hesitated, like she was already regretting having said it, but then she went on, in a tentative voice. “Shauna and her group, and Nicole. Those girls were pissed at her before she died. When I heard they’d testified they saw her at the lake with you, I always figured they’d gone there looking for her themselves.”
My adrenaline kicked in, everything else slowing down. “You didn’t say anything to anyone? At the trial…” I was still taking it all in.
She nodded. “They made it sound like they were best friends. I figured they were just doing that for the attention.” She shrugged, a small casual motion that enraged me. This information could have changed my life. I took a couple of breaths, gripping my hands together under the table until I’d calmed down.
“What were they upset about?” I said. “How did you hear about it?”
“Nicole called me one night crying. She said Shauna was mad at her and lying to the other girls, saying Nicole had fooled around with Rachel’s boyfriend and that she was the one who told Kim’s mom that Kim was gay.”
I remembered Cathy telling Ryan that they’d been pissed off at Nicole, remembered Kim saying Nicole had gotten her kicked out. I was finally getting close to the truth.
“Did Nicole tell you what Shauna was so angry about?”
“No, just that she’d screwed up really bad and Shauna found out.”
I thought over everything, reflecting back on the weeks leading up to the night of the murder. I remembered the white car slowing down outside the house. Maybe it had been Shauna after all. What could Nicole have done that was so bad Shauna turned the other girls on her?
Darlene also looked lost in thought as she stared at the cat, now stalking a fly on the floor. Her voice soft and haunted, she said, “She asked if we could be friends again, said she was sorry for how she had treated me. But I told her she was a bitch and I never wanted to talk to her again. Then I hung up.” Her eyes met mine. “That was the last time I ever spoke with her.”
Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then she heaved a sigh.
“I’ve got to get to work now.”
“I appreciate you talking to me today.” I stood up. “If you think of something else, anything at all, please call me.” I gave her my number, which she hastily jotted down on a piece of paper by her phone.
She walked me to the door, her arms hugging tight around her chest, like the conversation had cast a chill over her body.
Out on the front steps, she said, “Those girls, I never could understand why Nicole started hanging around with them.”
“Me neither.”